hearts. Diodoros lived!
No word-only a fleeting pressure of the hand and a quick look passed
between the elderly man and the maiden--who looked like a boy scarcely
passed his school-days--to show what they felt as they knelt beside the
wounded youth and bound up the deep gash in his shoulder dealt by the
sword that had felled him.

A little while afterward, Andreas drew from the basket which the ass
carried, and from which he had already taken bandages and medicine, a
light litter of matting. He then lifted Melissa on to the back of the
beast of burden, and they all moved onward.

The sights that surrounded them as long as they were near the Serapeum
forced her to close her eyes, especially when the ass had to walk round
some obstruction, or when it and its guide waded through slimy pools.
She could not forget that they were red, nor whence they came; and this
ride brought her moments in which she thought to expire of shuddering
horror and sorrow and wrath.

Not till they reached a quiet lane in Rhakotis, where they could advance
without let or hindrance, did she open her eyes. But a strange, heavy
pain oppressed her that she had never felt before, and her head burned
so that she could scarcely see Andreas and the two slaves, who, strong
in the joy of knowing that their young lord was alive, carried Diodoros
steadily along in the litter. The soldier--it was the centurion
Martialis, who had been banished to the Pontus--still accompanied them,
but Melissa's aching head pained her so much that she did not think of
asking who he was or why he was with them.

Once or twice she felt impelled to ask whither they were taking her, but
she had not the power to raise her voice. When Andreas came to her side
and pointed to the centurion, saying that without him he would never
have succeeded in saving her beloved, she heard it only as a hollow
murmur, without any consciousness of its meaning. Indeed, she wished
rather that the freedman would keep silent when he began explaining his
opportune arrival at the fountain, which must seem such a miracle to
her.

The slave-brand on his arm had enabled him to penetrate into the house
of Seleukus, where he hoped to obtain news of her. There Johanna had led
him to Alexander, and with the Aurelians he had found the centurion and
the slave Argutis. Argutis had just returned from the lady Euryale, and
swore that he had seen the wounded Diodoros. Andreas had then declared
his intention of b